Social media websites are becoming increasingly popular by having the abilities of connecting users and communities in a collaborative way. Social media services explore the opportunities for advanced communication and also serve as an advanced content sharing mechanism. Examples include not only social networking services (SNSs), such as MYSPACE and FACEBOOK, but also telecom operator's services such as messaging, photo-sharing, person-to-person as well as conference calls and even microblogging services such as TWITTER.
Millions of users are actively using services provided by such social media websites, exposing new trends in communication and content sharing that has not been typical in the past. For example, TWITTER has over 100 million active users generating over 250 million tweets per day (20 percent of which contain links). Thus, social media websites such as TWITTER, offer an attractive channel for online marketing and sales.
The overwhelming quantity of information available from social media websites creates challenges in effectively using such information in marketing strategies. Conventional social media analysis has focused on brand monitoring and reputation management on such social media websites. It would be desirable to provide methods and systems for exploring ways to drive acquisitions through social media websites.